Russia looking to make civilians suffer with infrastructure attacks – Blinken

Ukraine is seeking US-made Patriot missile batteries or other more advanced air defence systems than it has gotten so far from the United States and other allies to block Russian air strikes.

United States secretary of state Antony Blinken (AP)

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has condemned Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s power grid, saying that Moscow had turned its war machine to such strikes in order to “turn off the heat… so that civilians suffer”.

Mr Blinken spoke at a Nato foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest, Romania, devoted in part to coordinating aid to keep the lights – and furnaces – on in Ukraine, where Russian strikes have damaged an estimated third of that country’s electrical infrastructure.